Relax, The Xbox 360 Probably Isn't Going To Be Banned

International Trade Commission judge David Shaw has recommended that the import and sale of Xbox 360 consoles in the US be halted immediately. Sounds drastic, I know, but maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds.

Speaking with GI.biz, patent expert Florian Mueller says “I’ve never seen an ITC judge make any other recommendation than an exclusion order if his initial determination is that there is a violation. This is the normal course of business.

“Unlike judges at courts, ITC judges don’t make the decisions: they merely recommend them. Their recommendations are very frequently not adopted by the Commission, the six-member decision-making body at the top of the ITC. Not only does the Commission overrule those judges with respect to the actual violations but the Commission also has the final say on remedies.”

Mueller says that when making their final decision, the ITC’s Commission takes “public interest considerations” into account, which includes complaints from people who develop and sell Xbox 360 games. As such, he thinks “What’s more likely to happen is that a federal court in Microsoft’s home state of Washington will set the terms of a licence agreement that Motorola and Microsoft will have to enter into. As a result, Microsoft will be licensed and the Xbox won’t be an infringing product.”

"Two of the patents in question are related to an industry standard for video decoding, another two are for Wi-Fi technology and a fifth patent deals with communication between the Xbox and accessories."

"f**k patents"... why?? If you made something, then someone came along and took it and used it in their product to make millions and you got nothing for coming up with it..... Then you would be shitty too

I think he means the way some people do nothing but take out incredibly obscure and generic patents solely for the purpose of being able to sue if another company actually does something similar.

Like people who hold a patent that could be interpretted as a Wii controller but haven't actually done anything with it for seven years, before suddenly attempted to sue Nintendo for stealing their idea.

I think this is great, Microsoft did the exact same thing to Google a while back and forced Google to pay a few dollars licensing for every single phone with android on it. Now Google has bought Motorola they have found a patent to do the exact same thing to Microsoft. I bet this would all go away in an instant if Microsoft let Google use their patent.

Actually I hope Motorola get to impose the ban, MS has it coming, since they are trying to block Motorola phones coming into the country with an MS owned bullsh*t patent. If Motorola get to do the ban I see a quick cross licencing agreement happen and a WAY better outcome for the consumer.